To Have and to Hold
by sumthin.clever.5
Summary: Part 5 of my Parentlock Series Sherlock didn't change much after they married, but he did have the tendency to show his new family off.


A/N: A very special thanks to GeekishChic whose idea for a scene (which I tried to use every detail of because you're awesome) turned this from an 800 word ficlet into a 2500 word fic. My eternal thanks.

To Have and to Hold

Sherlock hadn't changed much since he and John had married. He was still arrogant, condescending, restless, impatient, and absolutely brilliant. The only real difference was that whenever someone implied or outright said that he and John were in a relationship, Sherlock took an unholy amount of pleasure in providing an emphatic affirmative. He all but shoved his platinum ring in people's faces at every opportunity. It made John wonder how long, how often, he'd wanted to do that, even when it hadn't necessarily been true.

Sherlock enjoyed showing off John and, since they had gotten him, Theo. Once John had finally let Sherlock browbeat him into allowing Theo _anywhere near_ a crime scene—after what John deemed time enough that Theo's immune system wasn't _that_ susceptible to all of the germs at crime scenes (from live people, let alone dead ones), and Sherlock's constant arguments of, "He needs to come _now_ , John. Learning must start _immediately_. If we wait too long, he'll be nearly as useless as everyone else's children."—Sherlock took great delight in stealing Theo from John so he could thrust him in the face of everyone he passed one minute, and unloading him on John so he could get closer to the body the next.

Sally, of course, was the biggest opponent of Theodore being there—"It's a baby, for Christ's sake! At a crime scene! A BABY!" "Well, I think he's technically called a toddler at this stage…." "LESTRADE!" And that was after she'd at least partially gotten over the fact that John and Sherlock had not only married, but adopted a child to begin with. But once Sherlock had made it abundantly clear that they were a package deal—no longer the Holmes/Watson duo, now a Holmes-Watson family trio—Lestrade had to accept them all or forfeit the lot.

And for awhile he had chosen to forfeit them. After all: "Baby, crime scene, yeah, no." But once the Yard had gotten out of its depth, which, as Sherlock was quick to remind Lestrade, was always, he eventually relented. Though with a last play at authority, he set some ground rules.

Theo was never to leave Sherlock's or John's arms or his carefully buckled pram—he was not allowed to wander.

John saw the wisdom of this. Theo got into _everything_ at home. God forbid the things he could get into at a crime scene.

Sherlock thought this an unnecessary restriction and undoubtedly intended to break it whenever he deemed necessary.

2\. Theo wasn't allowed to _touch_ anything, and that included the things Sherlock tried to hand him or put in his face close enough to reach as a way of getting around this rule.

This rule made perfect sense to John. Everything here was germy and unfit for children of any age, let alone one still in their early developmental years.

Sherlock thought it was ludicrous. " _How_ is he going to learn anything if he can't touch it? Touch is one of the basic senses for a _reason_ , John. It is fundamental."

John answered that with a simple "No" and that ended it.

Even with these rules in place, Sally's protests did not die, but everyone was well enough used to ignoring her that it didn't faze them for long.

Nothing stemmed Sherlock's need to showcase his husband and/or son. He even dragged John and Theo to his college reunion. Nevermind the fact that people usually only brought pictures of their children to reunions so Theo was the only child in attendance. He was obviously better than all of the children of Sherlock's former classmates, anyway, and Sherlock insisted he show them just how much.

John suspected Sherlock wanted living, breathing proof to shove in the faces of those who had once called him all of the things Sally still did—freak, inhuman, psychopath. John thought Sherlock wanted to prove that while he was admittedly an outsider and obviously smarter than the whole of them combined, he was still capable of having a family, of loving and being loved in return. Not that Sherlock would ever admit to wanting to prove anything to them.

John himself took a good deal of satisfaction in showing Theo to Sebastian Wilkes, the man who had once laughed at Sherlock to John's face, before John had really known Sherlock or how wrong everyone was about him. It was almost better than punching him, the look of disbelief Wilkes gave John. Almost, but not quite.

It was worth the extra smugness that showing them off gave Sherlock. Despite Sherlock needing nothing by way of a boost in his own arrogance, it gave John a sort of…giddy feeling. How else was he supposed to feel? Sherlock was proud of him and Theo simply for _being_. John supposed Sherlock was mostly proud of himself for the presence of John's and Theodore's being, but in Sherlockian terms, that was pretty much the same thing.

While Sherlock's showboating was unbiased and displayed everywhere- the shops and parks and playground when John insisted Theo be engaged with other children and do something normal- it was never so flagrant as when they were on a crime scene and surrounded by Lestrade's people, particularly Donovan.

John tried to follow Lestrade's rules as well as he could. He did not always succeed. He now had two children to chase after and though Theo shared none of Sherlock's DNA, he may as well have been his clone from how hard Theo tried to emulate Sherlock's every move. John feared Theo's John-traits were slowly being engulfed by his Sherlock-traits, the way John sometimes feared he himself was engulfed by Sherlock. Still, he did what he could to temper both of his boys' more outlandish tendencies.

One such unsuccessful attempt occurred when they were on the scene of what the Yard had originally classified as a result of gang-related violence due to the man's tattoos and the method of his killing. Sherlock assured them they were all idiots and set out to prove as such. He was in the process of collecting data that would lead him to who he considered the true culprit- the slighted woman that had wanted revenge on the man for his inattention.

John was walking Theo around the perimeter of the scene, voicing his observations in the way Sherlock particularly encouraged as a learning method for Theodore.

"Jooooohn!" John heard from across the yard.

Sherlock was kneeling by the body and beckoning John over.

John hesitated. Though he had agreed to bring Theodore to the crime scenes recently, he still kept him a relative distance away from the bodies. Instead, he walked over to Lestrade, the only one here they actually trusted to watch the baby, and handed Theo over so he could go and assist Sherlock, being his conductor of light as usual.

Greg was getting used to having Theodore around, didn't quite mind his presence since he hadn't yet made a nuisance of himself. He was rather fond of the baby, but refused to admit as such to Sherlock since his boasting was already outrageous. But Theodore made him think of the children he didn't have with his wife before the split. While he didn't regret the divorce, he did regret the loss of the opportunity for children. At his age, it was probably too late to start over. He was bouncing the baby in his arms as he explained Sherlock's latest theories to Sally, who scoffed often but listened, when he heard John make an outburst and turned to see Sherlock dash off through the bushes with his husband on his heels.

"Christ!" he said, turning to follow Sherlock on whatever thing he'd found but stopped and looked down at Theodore in his arms.

Theo turned to look back up at him from where his gaze was directed in the direction of his fathers' wakes. He seemed to be confused as to why Greg had stopped.

"Find Papa," he said clearly.

Greg wondered how often this particular phrase was uttered around the child for him to understand its meaning so clearly. It didn't sound like it stemmed from a simple game of hide and seek. Greg considered it for a minute before he thought better of it. Running after Sherlock was running into the unknown. He couldn't willingly bring a child into that.

"Watch Theodore," he said, passing the baby to Sally to protests from both parties. "I have to go after Sherlock!"

And with that he dashed off in the direction Sherlock and John disappeared through and left an offended Theodore to a disgruntled Sally. Theodore looked sulkily up at her and she repositioned him awkwardly in her arms. Sally rarely considered having children and only in the rarest of moments did motherly inclinations creep up on her.

She experienced a few now, rocking Theo back and forth and bouncing him.

"Your father is mad, you know," she told him.

Theodore's forehead scrunched up, appearing to understand exactly what she was saying and disagreeing with it highly. Or if not quite disagreeing, then thinking Sally didn't know Sherlock well enough to form an opinion one way or another. Sally didn't appear to notice either way.

"So far, you've turned out alright, but we won't tell him I said that, will we? I suspect it's because you don't share any of his genes."

Theo's offended look worsened and he began struggling to get away from Sally, saying, "No" and "Put me down" repeatedly.

She wrestled him into not falling from her arms.

"Bit difficult, aren't you? You could stand to be a bit more like John, but since he indulges Sherlock in everything, I'm betting he treats you just the same."

Theodore's struggles intensified with this latest insult and Sally nearly lost her hold on him.

"Donovan, what do you think you're doing?!" came Sherlock's infuriated shout as he marched back through the bush.

Sally turned and saw him, then strode to sit Theodore in the pram sitting a few feet away. Stiffening her spine, she turned to come face to face with Sherlock and match him insult for insult.

Theodore, appeased now that his Papa had returned and confident the woman problem was well in hand, climbed down from his unfastened stroller and walked about the crime scene unattended. He avoided the areas where people were still clustered around the prone figure on the ground and stuck to the outskirts, talking to himself the way his fathers talked to him.

"Tree," he said when he saw one, noting his observations aloud.

"Flower," he said of another.

"Shiny," he noted when he saw a necklace, broken and swinging from a bush.

"A clue!" he yelled in the direction of his Papa.

"Evidence" was still a bit beyond his speaking grasp, but Sherlock had taught him "clue" for now.

Sherlock's argument with Sally was immediately cut off and he started walking away from her as if it never happened.

Just then, John and Lestrade burst back through the bushes that Sherlock had emerged from with John panting and scolding.

" _Sherlock_! You _cannot_ keep running all over the place and disappearing and…"

His reprimand of Sherlock's flightiness cut off for an entirely new one.

" _Why_ is Theodore out of his pram and walking around?"

This had Greg turning to Sally and Sally turning a confused look to the unfastened stroller then a slightly guilty one back to Greg with a half-hearted excuse that the baby _had_ been in the stroller just a moment before.

Sherlock reached Theodore and squatted beside him before taking in the necklace.

"Oh very good, Theo! Have you found some evidence? See, John? Theo has solved the case," Sherlock directed at his husband before picking their son up. "Show Daddy what you found."

Theo made a series of excited but unintelligible noises interspersed with a few actual words in his glee to share his findings with John, waving his arms about a pointing vaguely at the necklace on the bush.

John smiled at the baby and nodded his head. When Theo was apparently finished explaining his deductions and how he came to them, he beamed happily at his parents and looked at them expectantly.

"Congratulations, love," John told the baby and kissed his head.

Theo accepted this praise as his due and smiled wider at John.

"But how did he even get over here?" John asked Sherlock.

"You can blame that on the inattentive Sergeant Donovan," Sherlock said. "Theodore was screaming and trying to get away from her company when I returned, not that I can blame him. Why Lestrade thought her an acceptable person to watch after him I will never know. In any case, when I came back, she plopped him in his pram and turned her vulgar tongue on me. He was never in any danger, of course, as I could see him when he left his pram and walked the crime scene. You would actually be very proud- he looked just like you did when you walked it and talked to him." Sherlock turned his own proud smile on the baby in his arms.

John frowned at him.

"If you saw him leave the pram, why didn't you stop him?"

"He was perfectly safe," Sherlock said with the touch of exasperation he always used when John tried to enforce Lestrade's rules.

"But he's not supposed to be out, Sherlock," John said with the touch of impatience he always used when he tried to enforce those self-same rules. "He could have gotten into something."

"John!" Sherlock said with a bit more exasperation.

John rolled his eyes and turned away from him. He was fighting a losing battle. He knew Sherlock would break both rules whenever John was not there to stop him. He turned his attention instead to Sally who should have been watching Theodore better since he was technically in her care before Sherlock returned. With her vehement protests that Theo not be allowed to come to crime scenes, she should have kept a closer eye on him. He strolled toward her to go tell her his piece.

Sherlock grinned at the sight of his husband giving Donovan what she deserved and talked to Theodore.

"You see that, Theo? That's your Daddy. Isn't he brilliant?"

"Right," said Theodore, though it ended up coming out sounding more like "light."

"Light?" queried Sherlock.

And then he recalled his wedding vows and the completely incorrect term he'd originally applied to John.

"Yes, he is light. So much more than a conductor. He really is the source of it all."

The source of all of Sherlock's happiness- his marriage, the child he was holding, and the very pleasant scene of John bowling right over Sally even from a considerable height difference. John was the beginning of everything that made Sherlock's life better since he came into it.

"Aren't we lucky he chooses to shine on us, Theo?" he asked the baby.

"Shine! Shine! Shine!" Theo echoed.

Sherlock smiled at him and went to collect his husband and their incompetent DI and the irrelevant sergeant and assure them all that Theodore could have solved this crime without them and he very nearly had.

Overall, it was a good day.

A/N: Admission: The number of times I almost called Theodore Oliver in this fic is shameful. I'm working on giving Theo his own identity. Like Ollie, Theo is more than what he came from.


End file.
